August, 1922 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



4U9 



and more recently, this year, the organization 

 of all of the activities having to do with the 

 economic side of farm j^roduction and dis- 

 tribution into what is now designated the 

 "Bureau of Agricultural Economics." 



The history of the development of Gov- 

 ernment work on marketing problems is com- 

 paratively short. While there have been 

 sporadic suggestions since the Federal De- 

 partment of Agriculture was established, 

 looking toward the development of some 

 marketing agency, nothing of importance was 

 done until March. 1913. when authority was 

 given and an appropriation of $50,000 was 

 made in the Agricultural Appropriation bill 

 for the study of marketing and distribution 

 of farm products by the Department of 

 Agriculture. The Office of Markets was 

 created in May, 1913, as a separate unit in 

 the department. By 1915 an appropriation 

 for this work had been increased to $200,000 

 and the enforcement of the Cotton Futures 

 Act was intrusted to this office, bringing an 

 additional appropriation of $150,000. Work 

 in rural organization was provided for with 

 $4.0,000, making in 1916 a total of $484,050 

 available for marketing activities. In 1917 

 Congress passed the Grain Standards Act, the 

 Warehouse Act, the Standard Container Act 

 the administration of all being delegated to 

 the Office of Markets and Rural Organiza- 

 tion. With the appropriations included for 

 the enforcement of these new acts, the total 

 appropriation for marketing work was in- 

 creased to $1,172,590. 



The war emergency was the occasion for 

 rapidly expanding market service work and 

 when the Bureau of Markets was established 

 under that name, in June, 1918, the regular 

 appropriation of $1,718,575 was supple- 

 mented by $2,522,000 for the war emergency 

 work. 



In 1921 the consolidation of the Bureau of 

 Crop Estimates and the Bureau of Markets 

 was authorized, thereby providing for a closer 

 correlation of the marketing and production 

 activities. This year, 1922, the Agricultural 

 appropriation bill provided for the consolida- 

 tion of the Office of Farm Management and 

 Farm Economics with the Bureau of Mar- 

 ket and Crop Estimates, which further con- 

 solidated production and marketing work into 

 a common field. 



Growing Interest in Economic Questions 



Until the war gave stimulus to popular in- 

 terest in economic questions, the Department 

 of Agriculture dealt primarily with prob- 



lems of individual farm management, with 

 jiarticular facts of crop production and with 

 specific market problems. More recently, 

 however, the demand has been for economic 

 information that will enable the farmer to 

 adjust his production program to changed 

 marketing conditions in this country and 

 abroad. Changes in foreign demands, chan- 

 ges in cost of transportation and in charges 

 made for other middleman processes have 

 made it necessary for the farmer to study 

 economic conditions as never before in this 

 generation, if he is to produce and market 

 farm products intelligently. 



The development of work in production 

 statistics essential to the adjustment of pro- 

 duction to market conditions began with the 

 organization of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture when the work of gather- 

 ing statistics was inaugurated. Later came 

 a demand for studies of the economic as- 

 pects of the individual farm as a basis for 

 efficient farm management, and the organ- 

 ization of the Office of Farm Management 

 resulted. Still later the insistent demand by 

 farmers and the public for a closer study of 

 marketing problems and means of preparing 

 farm products for the market led to the 

 development of the Bureau of Markets. 

 These three phases of the farmer's economic 

 problem were approached from the stand- 

 point of practical results which would be 

 immediately useful to farmers and others, 

 but primarily to farmers. It is the farmer 

 who has the keenest interest in a given con- 

 signment of farm products getting into the 

 market. He is interested in efficient hand- 

 ling of his product which will reduce the 

 cost of putting the product upon the mar- 

 ket. He is also keenly interested in securing 

 a fair share of the consumer's dollar in re- 

 turn for his productive effort. But since the 

 farmer's future efforts in production are 

 determined by the return he gets, consumers 

 generally are vitally affected by the ef- 

 ficiency and the fairness of the marketing 

 system. Hence, while the marketing of farm 

 products is distinctly an agricultural problem 

 and requires the attention of the agricultural 

 economist, the right solution of these agri- 

 cultural marketing problems benefits not the 

 farmer only but the whole Nation. 



When it became clear to those administer- 

 ing the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture that production costs, readjustments 

 in farm organization, the statistics of pro- 

 duction, distribution, and consumption, bore 



